Does Paul Ryan know that one of our current navy ships—a submarine especially—could obliterate our entire WWI navy - along with the rest of the world's WWI navies, every last ship - without anyone ever even knowing what it was that had hit them?

Here's a really neat graphic that Congressman Ryan might appreciate, showing what you can find inside a modern submarine - and this is actually already an old one:

Is it too much to ask that this kind of stupid get called out by his own party? It really shouldn't be.

"You mentioned the navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military's changed," [Obama] said to laughter from the audience.

"We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines," he continued.

"So the question is not a game of Battleship where we're counting ships. It's: "What are our capabilities?"

ELIZABETH JACKSON: A controversial uranium mine will be established in the East Pilbara after the traditional Aboriginal owners signed an agreement with a Canadian mining company.

[...]

DAVID WEBER: Environment groups have maintained strong opposition to uranium mining in WA.

[Martu Leader] Noel Whitehead says they should respect the decision of the Martu people.

NOEL WHITEHEAD: I say to those groups, come to the East Pilbara, sit down with Martu people and hear for themselves the views of the significant majority of Martu who've made the decision that they support this mine.

Martu are not stupid people, they understand it fully, they have made the decision with all of the information before them.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Hey, Thom, I found your song Sigh on Muvio's podsafe music directory. I love the groove, and if you don't mind, I'd like to use it for the theme song to my independent music podcast. It's connected with Owldolatrous Press, linked here. I will happily give credit and a link to you.

For a washed-up never-has-been like myself - that's just nice.

That sent me looking on THE GOOGLE for another podcast that already uses a song of mine ("Inside Joke")—and I just found this, by the Tufu Guru. The first few seconds are weak, frankly, but this is a really well done video. And one heck of a theme song!

That actually looks like a good blog - or looks like it was: it's unfortunately been dead for more than a year. Oh well.

Someone else used it in a video of their kid. That's just funny. (Just confirmed that I saw this one years ago. Thought it looked a little familiar. Thanks, JeeklaFunk!)

Oh - found the podcast: Katye and Kyliemac. They closed up shop just a few months ago after many years and nearly 500 episodes. Well, done, K and Km, well done.

This is a very crucial moment for the potential internationalization the Syria conflict.

The conflict in Syria has been a grave matter for Turkey for the past several months. Refugees are pouring over the border at a rapid clip, and Turkey has previously warned that it can no longer handle the influx. In the meantime, about Turkish schools [sic] near the border have been shut down the border and residents in Turkey’s border towns are increasingly anxious of the conflict spilling over.

Wednesday, Turkey struck back. According to the Turkish prime minister's office, Turkish artillery fired on Syrian targets after deadly shelling from the Syrian side hit a Turkish border, killing five people.

"Our armed forces at the border region responded to this atrocious attack with artillery fire on points in Syria that were detected with radar, in line with the rules of engagement," the Turkish government said in a statement.

Last week, while I was participating in a conference, I received an email from Google with a puzzling subject line: “Subpoena Notice from Google (Internal Ref. No. 257121).” I opened the email, assuming that it was some kind of sophisticated phishing attempt. It wasn’t. It was Google informing me — more than a little cryptically — that Chevron had subpoenaed my account information and that it intended to comply unless I filed a motion to quash. [...]

My first reaction was shock. As regular readers know, I have often criticized Chevron’s actions in Ecuador. But I could not imagine why Chevron was subpoenaing my private information; the sum total of my interaction with Steven Donziger, the Ecuadorian plaintiffs’ lead attorney and the defendant in Chevron’s lawsuit, consisted of two emails, neither of which contained anything substantive. What did Chevron think I had that would help them? Or were they simply trying to intimidate me?

Monday, October 1, 2012

WASHINGTON - U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney arrived back from the future today and announced that he had won his first debate against Barack Obama - scheduled for this Wednesday - in what he said the press called "smashing" fashion.